The government contractor said revenues slid 10.6 per cent to 1.35billion for the first half of the financial year, compared with 1.51billion a year earlier.

The company was, however, also a major government contractor.

He was prosecuted, not for what he had said of the government, but for some secondary things he had said of the government contractor.

They are not charities but government contractors that don't pay tax.

Such companies - collectively known as government contractors or outsourcers, private companies delivering public services - generally have had a rotten decade.